Purpose of Music Videos

The history of music videos

The very first music video to be created was a Queen Song by the name of Bohemian Rhapsody and this was made back in 1975, and just by watching this video and comparing it to what we have now e.g. the video is pretty basic, there is no use of special effects, high key lighting, cutting to the beat, green screen or anything like that, it is just a simple video where you see the band lip syncing to the song and performing it. From this we can see just how far music videos have come.

 

The reasons why music videos exist

There are a few reasons why music videos exist today, but the main reason why people make them is to use as a promotional tool, these music videos promote the artist or the album/single, so if people enjoy the video then they may want to check out the artist themselves. The second reason why music videos exist is for entertainment, which also acts as a promotional tool; as if it is entertaining then people will want to check out the band/artist. The last reason why music videos exist is to be used as a form of art.

What makes a good music video?

There are a few things that make a music video good, and for it to be good it must include all these things, the first of which is that it must have some level of entertainment, if it isn't entertaining then it won't be watched. The next is that must be accessible to a mainstream audience, meaning it must be on TV or the Internet or something else that is used by a lot of people, if it isn't then it can't be viewed by a lot of people. The next one ties into entertainment, as a good music video has to be unique, because if it just the same as another one then people won't find it very entertaining. The last thing is that it must leave a lasting impression; it must make the person who watched it want to talk about it with people and remember it and watch it again and again.

Where does the audience consume music videos?

There are many places that people can consume music videos in this day and age, and each method has different purposes and outcomes, they are as follow:

· MTV - The main purpose of MTV is to promote the artist that is being shown on their channel. Being that this channel is showing music videos 24/7 they give people a lot of exposure to music videos; also by showing these music videos they are making money from subscriptions and advertisements. An example of something that has been promoted by MTV is the Buggles who did the first ever music video performed on MTV with the song Video killed the radio star.

· YouTube – The purpose of music videos on YouTube is to promote, but since anyone can upload videos to YouTube, the service can also be self promoting, which helps lesser known artists. Something that is unique about YouTube is that it tracks the view count also the likes/dislikes to see the popularity of the video. An example of someone that has become famous from youtube is Justin Bieber, he performed as an armature premoting his own music, and now has become one of the most known singers in the world.

· DVD – This is used to promote as it is the traditional way of promotion. The outcome of it being on a DVD is that money made goes to the artists, record companies and retailers. An example of a band that has been premoted through DVD is the Beatles who played in the movie A Hard Day's Night, which is a movie about them and their music, and they used this to premote their music and their band.

· iTunes – The purpose of iTunes is also to promote the artist and albums. The result of buying music videos from iTunes is that when purchased the video can be viewed anywhere and at anytime, another thing is that all money spent of the music video goes to the record companies, artist and iTunes itself, the top 5 downloaded songs from iTunes all time are

1. "I Gotta Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas
2. "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga
3. "Boom Boom Pow" by Black Eyed Peas
4. "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz
5. "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay

· Social Networking – When referring to social networking, the most famous examples would be Facebook and MySpace, and the reason that music videos are placed on these sites is to promote the artists. The outcome for putting music videos on these sites are that fans of the artist can voice their opinion on the music video and the popularity of the video can be measured, also money can be made to Facebook if the artist attracts a lot of popularity as people will want advertisements placed on the page or the video. There are also a lot of people these days who created facebook pages to promote their work, e.g. Alex Day who will put up his music videos on Facebook for those who dont use Youtube.